DR. WALLACE: I'm a 16-year-old girl who does regular babysitting, and I love this first job of mine! I really enjoy working with small kids, and I love the sense of pride I feel in earning some money on my own. My father set me up with a savings account and he's suggested that I put at least 50% of my babysitting earnings into savings.

My parents have always purchased clothes and shoes for my 8-year-old little sister and me whenever we've needed them. For this school year, they did buy both of us all the regular clothes we needed, but lately I wanted to buy a really fancy dress for a special occasion.

My father felt this purchase was unnecessary because I had several other articles of clothing he felt would be appropriate for the event I plan to attend. But I want something new and special for this event! Finally, my father suggested to me that he would assist me with a short-term loan.

He said that my mother would find me this fancy dress, but that I would have to make installment payments each month for the next 10 months in order to pay this back! He is also charging me 5% interest!

He told me that he does not need the money but he wants me to understand how finance works. Don't you feel, like I do, that he's a bit overbearing on all of this? I personally feel my parents should just buy me this dress this one time since I've never asked for anything like this before. — Want to dress up, via email

WANT TO DRESS UP: I agree with your father in this instance. Now that you're old enough to understand what a job is and how hard it is to earn money, the principle of saving a portion of your income and learning to budget is a good life lesson that you can begin to learn to apply to your life right now. You'll feel a little short-term consternation, but in the long run, your father is actually doing you a huge favor.

Remember, he did not say no to that dress; he actually said yes to the dress. But he did attach conditions and stipulations, which put you in the mode of making a decision you'll have to live with either way. You can opt to do without the dress for now and continue saving your money, or you can enter into the arrangements he has offered. The choice is yours, and if you do end up purchasing the dress, you'll also be getting personal finance lessons along with it.

SHE'S LUCKIER THAN SHE REALIZES

DR. WALLACE: I want to make a brief comment about the girl who recently wrote to you saying that her father, following her parents' divorce, only comes to visit her a couple of times a month and those times always seem to conflict with her social schedule, and this made her unhappy. She wanted her father to be more flexible with his visitation schedule.

Let me simply say that my own father, once he divorced my mother, never even contacted or looked at me again. He now has 11 children in total, and I have nine stepsiblings who I loosely keep in touch with.

As a little girl, my biological father never contacted me, never sent me a birthday card and never worried about me at all in any way. He even welched on child support payments that he legally owed in support of my brother and myself.

I recently got married myself, and my dear mother was the one who walked me down the aisle on the day that I married my husband. And you guessed it, my biological father never even knew I was getting married, and he of course did not attend my ceremony. What I wish to say to the young girl writing to you complaining about the specific timing of her father's visits is to consider how lucky she is. She has a loving father who dutifully visits her and takes an interest in her a few times a month by showing up in person and spending time with her. She should worry less about her personal social schedule and focus more on the fact that she has both a mother and a father in her life, and each takes an interest in her well-being. Many other children are not this lucky. — I know this via personal experience, via email

I KNOW THIS VIA PERSONAL EXPERIENCE: Thank you for your heartfelt letter and the profound personal story you have shared here with all of us. I trust your words will resonate with many teens, parents and even grandparents as well.

Dr. Robert Wallace welcomes questions from readers. Although he is unable to reply to all of them individually, he will answer as many as possible in this column. Email him at rwallace@thegreatestgift.com. To find out more about Dr. Robert Wallace and read features by other Creators Syndicate writers and cartoonists, visit the Creators Syndicate website at www.creators.com.

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